


I Forgive You

by Flashofhope



Category: Hello Neighbor (Video Game)
Genre: Neighbour finishes painting Player's house, Player reunites with the neighbour
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-11
Updated: 2017-12-11
Packaged: 2019-02-13 08:51:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12980505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flashofhope/pseuds/Flashofhope
Summary: After settling in his old childhood home, the protagonist (David) gets a new job where he sees a familiar face at his office Christmas party.





	I Forgive You

When all the cardboard boxes had been unpacked and his belongings placed where they belonged, David felt settled in his former childhood home. All that was left to do was finding a job to secure an income, that would go towards restoring his broken down home to its former splendour.

After two weeks of eating Chinese food while watching TV after a day’s work job hunting, David received a job offer in the city. A job where he remained employed long to attend the office Christmas party.

The party was a festive one. With Christmas songs playing loudly on the intercom, while the employees; wearing reindeer antlers and Santa hats feasted on fruit pies, potato salads, pavlova and other party foods danced and joked around, enjoying each other’s company.

The only person who seemed like they weren’t completely enjoying themselves was David, who was simply content with giving a quick hello to his colleagues and putting foods next to each other on his plate at random, whether they were savoury or sweet. He might as well get some food out of this.

It wasn’t that he didn’t like Christmas parties; after being a newbie in the workforce he appreciated the chance to unwind and mingle with his team mates. The party simply came at the wrong time, since he wanted nothing more than to be renovating his neglected house.

This kind of thinking left David looking like he only had one expression; a pensive, unhappy one.

Almost as if he could sense these unhappy thoughts, David’s boss Heath Woods, followed by a man behind him, approached his seemingly sad employee.

“That’s a lot of different foods on your plate David, you got a favourite one?”

“Uh… the apple pie. It was delicious.” David answered. Grateful that he’d had the chance to eat some of the foods he had amassed, so he had an answer to give to his boss.

“Was it _golden_ delicious?” Heath asked with a grin, awaiting David’s response.

“Ha, ha. Yeah.” David gave a fake, but convincing chuckle to satisfy his boss.

 It seemed to work, because he stepped aside and introduced the guest behind him.

“This is my brother, Keith. I invited him here, so he wouldn’t be spending Christmas alone.”

Had it been anyone else, David would have seen this as a noble gesture, but all David could do at the moment was stare at the moustachioed man with greying hair standing before him.

“Keith’s gone through a lot, but you can see the resemblance despite the grey hair, can’t you?”

“I can imagine.”

“Well, while you two chat, I’m going to have some more fruit punch.” Heath announced and walked away.

The two men stared at each other. Neither one saying a word. They didn’t need to. The former neighbour’s remorseful and David’s resentful look on his face said it all.

“You have a lot of things to answer for.”

“I know. Can we talk about it?” Keith asked, looking around the room to see if it was safe to discuss their former history.

“Not here. I know somewhere where we can talk.” David stated in a matter of fact way and the two left the Christmas party and entered an unoccupied room in the office.

“Why did you have him as your prisoner?” David asked bluntly, cutting right to the chase with the most pressing question. A personal question Keith was reluctant to answer.

“Why would you lock your own son in your basement?” David clarified with a persistent tone, making it clear that he wasn’t going to accept silence as an answer.

“It was an accident, they were only playing, but when Tom killed his sister, for his own safety and the protection of others, I kept him locked away.”

“I still have nightmares about being captive in that house to this day. I was gone for so long that my parents filed a missing person report.” David told Keith, in an attempt to make him feel guilty for abducting him as a child.

“I know that keeping you in my house against your will was wrong, but I couldn’t bear to let the truth about my son slip out. I hope you can forgive me.”

“I’m sorry that your son caused your daughter's death. It doesn’t excuse your actions, but I’ve already made my peace with it and I forgive you.” David gave his condolences and his forgiveness to Keith. The latter, Keith thought he would never receive.

“You know, even to this day, your house is haunted with the shadows of the past. I saw it in my dreams.” David told Keith, trying to relate to him with something that lingered in his mind.  
  
“When the house burned down, I thought all traces of what had happened were gone. That no one else but me, remembered it. But it appears I was wrong… again.” Keith confessed. The guilt weighing heavily on him, but he was not the only one hurting.

“I feel so empty…” David said, clutching his head to soothe the headache that had been building up all night. Maybe he should have eaten more food at the party when he had the chance, instead of collecting it on a plate to make it seem like he was interested in everybody’s cooking. Now that he felt like he was running with an empty engine, the resolve to endure the party faded and he told Keith he wanted to go home.

Once they were back at the party, Keith went to his brother and informed him of the situation.

“David’s not feeling well. I’m going to drive him home.”

“That’s kind of you to do.” Heath praised his brother, knowing what driving someone home safe meant to him.

Leaning on Keith’s shoulder for support, David allowed Keith to lead him to his car. Once they had arrived, David clumsily handed him the keys and got into the passenger seat.

“Drive to my old place. You know where it is.” David ordered Keith with a sleepy voice, before succumbing to his fatigue and falling asleep in the passenger seat. But that was only one thing David had asked of Keith, which he was happy to do. But it wouldn’t be enough. He’d make it up to David in a bigger way. He had to.

Getting to the house was no problem, since Keith knew his way around the area. The most difficult part of the journey, was the worry that came with having an unconscious person, sitting next to him. David had acted like he was feeling light headed. Nothing a good night’s sleep wouldn’t fix, but he still worried all the same.

A decade ago, he wouldn’t have cared if his prisoner was feeling bad. But with the passing of the years, Keith had mellowed into a more compassionate person who cared for a young man, as if he was his own child.

After a long drive, they’d finally arrived at David’s house. Fishing the house key from his pocket, Keith attempted to open the lock, under the cover of darkness. He failed a couple times and realized the anxiety David must have felt in order to escape, when he was trying to open the very locks he had installed. No, he wouldn’t dwell on that now. He had to get David inside.

Once he had opened the front door, he turned on the lights in the house and retrieved David from the car. Carrying the exhausted man in his arms. Keith placed David on the bed and pulled the covers over him. His fatherly instincts reminding him of all the times he had tucked his daughter Lucy into bed, before kissing her goodnight.

Tiptoeing out of the room to avoid making the floorboards squeak, Keith turned off the light in the bedroom and entered the living room, where he slept on the couch for the night.

Getting up early the next day, while David was still asleep, Keith made a breakfast consisting of sausages and fried eggs on toast for the both of them. Its familiar scent wafting through the house was the first thing that David’s mind registered upon waking up.

Rubbing his eyes and stretching, David got out of bed. The clothes he’d worn the night before, now rumpled from being slept in. But that didn’t matter. What he wanted to know, was why the smell of breakfast being cooked was coming from his kitchen, when he was the only person living in the house.

Walking cautiously, David slowly made his way to the kitchen, where to his surprise he found his former neighbour, placing two plates full of the food on the table.

“I hope you don’t mind, but I made us some breakfast.” Keith said apologetically, sensing that David might take issue with him being there. It had been only one day since their reunion and David’s forgiveness of his actions after all.

Taking a seat, David tasted each item on the plate and gave Keith his verdict.

“It tastes good.” David politely told him. Even though he had wanted to remark that it tasted better than the canned food he’d been fed when imprisoned in his house as a child.

“I also finished painting your house. You only had a small patch of unpainted wood left.” Keith added, revealing the final task he had done for David while he was asleep.

All these things David realized, were things that good neighbours did for each other. Keith may not have been the best of men in the past, but the amends he had shown today proved that there was some good in him after all.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for some closure after finishing Hello Neighbour. It was thanks to people's YouTube theories that I was able to polish details about what really happened (son unlocking our door, pushing the daughter to her death etc.)
> 
> I named the player David after the David and Goliath story (small kid vs big adult in this instance) and the Neighbour Keith after Goliath’s (Gargoyles) voice actor Keith David.


End file.
